Mountain West match-ups look favorable for Utah State football in 2013 season

USU Sports by Tony Jones

Published: February 12, 2013 4:24 pm

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The Utah State football team now knows who and where it's playing for the next four seasons - all that remains is when.

The Mountain West released the football match-ups from the 2013 season to 2016. The system the conference has used ensures that each division has two home-and-home series in the next four years, while getting a single home-and-home for cross-division match-ups.

In the fall, Utah State will play Boise State, Colorado State, Hawai'i and Wyoming at home. The Aggies will head on the road for games at Air Force, New Mexico, San Jose State and UNLV.

Utah State will play the same opponents in 2014 with the locations swapped. In 2015 and 2016, the Aggies will have cross-division games against Fresno State, Nevada and San Diego State instead of Hawai'i, SJSU and UNLV.

The 2013 schedule has some obvious breaks for an Aggies squad that is returning a lot of starters next season. Boise State at home is the obvious one, setting up a possible Mountain Division-deciding game at Romney Stadium if the Aggies can find the success that helped them win the WAC last season.

Other favorable turns in scheduling: Wyoming and Hawai'i at home, and weaker cross-division opponents New Mexico and UNLV as opposed to Nevada and San Diego State. It will make for fewer marquee match-ups that might national airwaves, but it carves out a less treacherous path to the Mountain West championship game on Dec. 7.

The breakdown of the Mountain West opponents for the next four seasons: